Thursday, February 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Theater: Theatre in the Valley doesn't quite grasp the heart of Lost in Yonkers

By Erin Auerbach

In the world of theater, liking a Neil Simon play is about equal to enjoying a root canal: It's just not a popular thing to do. But Lost In Yonkers, his Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning 1991 seriocomic piece is arguably his richest and most endearing work. The problem with Theatre in the Valley's production is there's a blatant lack of cultural sensibility and understanding, and that leaves a distance between the world of the play and the world of the production that makes the audience feel as though it's being told that these characters are all pathetic or crazy.

Although the script is overloaded with expository fluff, there's quite of bit of humor woven into its rather melancholy story line about two young brothers who have to live with their cold grandmother. In 1942 Yonkers, Jay (Jason French) and Artie (O.J. Barakat) spend about 10 months bunking out on their grandma Kurnitz's (Helen Lipton) couch, minding their manners and waiting for their father, Eddie (Mark D'Agostino) to come back from his job as a traveling salesman. Their mother died of cancer, and they spend the better part of a year dealing with a surly grandparent and their eccentric 35-year-old Aunt Bella (Celeste Cunningham), sharing a small apartment above the candy store they run. They also get to know their shady Uncle Louie (Neal Katz) and their nervous Aunt Gert (Susan Bindhamer).

Some say Simon's plays are big schmaltz-fests, full of kooky Jewish characters with enough neuroses to keep a gaggle of psychiatrists working overtime for years. While Theatre in the Valley is careful not to make fun of these people, they don't make a lot of attempts to really understand them. Heck, a lot of the emotional revelations in the play are written right into the script, but there's a missing piece to this zany cultural puzzle: its ethnicity.

There's no politically correct way to say it. This is one of the most goyish productions ever produced of a script that relies so heavily on a sense of New York Jewish culture. (And, yes, there are one or two people in the cast who are Jewish.) It's not because it's a religious play, but the connections between German-Jewish immigrants and the American culture they've assimilated into during World War II is a crucial background element to the story.

Helen Lipton is outstanding as the untouchable matriarch and uses her physical life to convey an icy, tough woman who's led a cold, hard life. She is the most believable actor on stage. Although a bit shaky at first, both French and Barakat display some potential as displaced brothers as the play goes on. They both need to work on how to get more out of comic timing, but that may happen as they get more experience. Director Paula Wilkes doesn't quite pull that potential humor out of them, which is surprising because she is a fine actress and has performed marvelously well in many community shows around town.

Bella is an especially complicated character, and Cunningham struggles to play her honestly. She uses a pseudo-New York accent that comes and goes, and in an attempt to give her nervous ticks, she creates a Bella that's more mentally deficient than emotionally affected. Katz plays Louie like a low-level Mafia wannabe, and that choice may have worked, but he lacked the cockiness necessary to pull it off. Bindhamer gives Gert such an over-the-top skittish speech pattern that her small part sticks out as a caricature.

Even in the midst of these rather stern criticisms, the play is not without its merits. Theatre in the Valley tries hard to avoid the hijinx that cannot only destroy the material, but insult the audience. But in its effort to understand the seriousness in the story, it hasn't quite done its homework well enough to play it for reality. If it had, a lot more of the humor and poignancy would have shined through.

Lost in Yonkers plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Valley View Recreation Center in Henderson. For tickets and info, call 558-7275.